Slow down and save lives

Monday

Jun 24, 2013 at 8:52 AM

There is a problem on our roadways that many of us exacerbate.

There is a problem on our roadways that many of us exacerbate.Speeding is not just a violation of the law; it can be a severe danger to you, the people in your car and the people in the cars around you.This is the way Louisiana Highway Safety Commission Executive Director Lt. Col. John LeBlanc phrased the problem in a recent letter to the editor: “You don’t need a radar gun to confirm that many drivers are exceeding the speed limit. All you have to do is drive at the speed limit and watch as vehicles zip past.”That is a good way to get a perspective on the issue. If you feel like you’ll be run over while adhering to the speed limit, that means a lot of people are going much too fast.The evidence isn’t just anecdotal, either. There are numbers to back it up.According to LeBlanc’s letter, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that speed is a contributing factor in nearly one-third of all highway crash deaths.That might not be as many as alcohol claims each year, but it is a large number of people who die needlessly because we are too careless to obey the speed limits.In Louisiana, if the numbers are expanded to include all aggressive driving, they account for more than half of all fatal crashes.The most difficult part of attacking the speeding problem is that there is no cultural stigma attached to it. And even the legal penalties are not very severe.Drinking and driving has become a practice that people discourage among one another. People commonly step in to keep others from driving drunk and taking their lives in their hands.We don’t often hear each other reminding the driver of the speed limit. We might ask the driver to slow down in extreme cases, but we are less likely to take a real stand on a practice that is nearly as dangerous as drunken driving.That is a shame, because it is cultural pressure that will change habits such as this.As LeBlanc points out in his letter, under similar conditions, a car going 60 mph takes twice as long to stop as a car going 40 mph.Why would we purposely take such a risk — with no discernible advantage. It might seem like you will arrive at your destination sooner, but you are actually making it less likely that you arrive there at all.Speeding is a life-or-death problem on Louisiana’s roads. Please help by driving safely and encouraging others to do the same.

Editorials represent the opinions of the newspaper, not of any individual.

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